Very nice article. I replaced the touch screen on a cell phone ( Sony Xperia Z2)by using Optical Clear Adhesive( OCA) and it works in a strange ways. e.g I click on one letter and it writes different or writes more than one . When I test it from a service menu it draws different line than it is correct.

I had tested that touch screen before gluing( using OCA ) and it worked well.

So I separated the touch screen and LCD it again (by using a repair machine) and test it again and it worked ok.

Does it mean that by a pressure ( that OCA caused ),the function changed?

Thanks for the feedback everyone and glad you enjoyed the article! Regarding the question from User 78RPM- In mutual capacitance you scan all of the 'pixels' (or nodes in industry parlance) and convert capacitive measurements into digital. These are all stored in memory so you can make decisions in firmware as to which nodes represent fingers touching the screen. You can almost think of it as a topographical or 3D contour map of the screen with the X and Y axes representing position and the 'Z height' representing the capacitive signal. So the tallest peaks on the map represent likely finger locations. Of course you get complexities introduced from water droplets, palms resting on the screen, or hovering fingers that you want to report as hovering objects rather than touches, and so on. All of these need good algorithmic techniques to effectively reject them

In self capacitance you take of all these same capacitive measurements in each X and Y axis and you have a profile or a single measurement per trace. You can think of it as a bar chart with the height of each bar symbolizing the capacitive measurement. And the number of bars is the total of number of X and Y traces. You can then use a center of mass style calculation (or similar algorithm) that computes the X-position and Y-position of the finger. As you can see you're looking at each axis independently so you don't have a datapoint per node as you do in mutual capacitance but as the article illustrates there are benefits from self capacitance for power consumption, moisture immunity and first touch latency.

To answer your other question a single broken trace will cause a dead spot along that particular trace where the touchscreen will become unresponsive. The further along the trace (i.e.- farther from the routing channel and closer to the end of the trace) that break is located, the smaller the dead zone will be. If the trace breaks right where it routes into the touchscreen from the bezel edge then effectively the entire trace will become a deadzone. The remaining part of the touchscreen will be usable though.

Help me understand, Shar or taimoortariq or anyone else. I had always thought that all the capacitance pixels of a phone or tablet were mapped to memory addresses. The article is telling me that there are only two circuits; the X and Y axes. Then there is some kind of capacitance profile that identifies the spot that is touched. What is that algorithm or neural network like?

A secondary question: Is it possible that a single break in either the X or Y axis could cause a single point of failure for the whole device?

Practically all electronic devices today contain metals that may
be coming from conflict-ravaged African countries. And political pressures will increasingly influence how these minerals are sourced and used in products.

Design for manufacturing (DFM) in mold production means that mold designers evaluate the manufacturability of their molds in the early stage of mold development by collecting all relevant information and applying it to their designs. They also have to consider many other factors, including flow balance, structural stress, and assembly tolerance, in order to ensure successful molding production.

Some adhesives provide strong structural bonds but take hours to fixture and attain handling strength. The technologies that offer the fastest cure do not bear loads or withstand stresses. A new class of adhesives aims to make both stick.

Focus on Fundamentals consists of 45-minute on-line classes that cover a host of technologies. You learn without leaving the comfort of your desk. All classes are taught by subject-matter experts and all are archived. So if you can't attend live, attend at your convenience.